Optical fibers are used in wide varieties of applications such as optical transmission equipment, lighting, ornamentation, and displays. Glass optical fibers have excellent optical transmission properties in a wide range of wavelengths; however, their processability and mechanical characteristics are not so excellent. By contrast, plastic optical fibers are structured, for example, by coating the periphery of a core made of a highly transparent resin such as polymethyl methacrylate with a highly transparent resin having a refractive index lower than that of the core. Compared with glass optical fibers, plastic optical fibers have excellent flexibility, processability and the like.
On the other hand, plastic optical fibers are often used under high-temperature conditions as optical information transmission equipment in automobiles and the like, and thus higher heat resistance is required. Patent Literature 1 proposes plastic optical fibers produced by using resin containing a repeating unit derived from 2-(perfluorooctyl)ethyl methacrylate as the material for cladding formed on the periphery of the core.